Wrongly told he has AIDS, prisoner attempts suicide

A prisoner attempted to kill himself after wardens incorrectly informed him that he was carrying the AIDS virus. The man, 40, was serving time in the Sharon Prison and, after the mistaken diagnosis, was placed in a cell with two AIDS sufferers.

The man was arrested six months ago on drug-related charges. During his trial he complained of illness and was hospitalized for a check-up. When he was later released from the medical center, his paperwork noted that he was carrying HIV. After the prisoner, whose name was not released for publication, was informed of this, he became depressed and attempted to commit suicide.

The Israeli Prisons Service insisted Thursday that it followed procedure and that the hospital was to blame for the mistake.

The Barzilai Medical Center, where the man had been examined, offered two possible explanations for the error. The first was related to a hospitalization two years earlier when the man was found to be suffering from Hepatitis C, or HCV. The initials “HCV” were handwritten on a form, but due to poor penmanship, looked more like “HIV.”

The second explanation was that the error may have been made when the man was first admitted to the emergency room and a clerk marked his paperwork as HIV positive.